


Don't paint me black when I used to be golden

by Wallyallens



Series: small steps home [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU
Genre: DRUNK!FIC, Gen, Idiots, brotherly bonding stuff, like /normal people/, they should totally talk about their feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 15:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3614883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallyallens/pseuds/Wallyallens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick gets drunk and calls an unexpected person for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't paint me black when I used to be golden

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Clairvoyant' by The Story So Far.

_I only have but one complaint at the moment, don’t paint me black when I used to be golden . . ._

 

Of all the calls Jason expected to get that night, this wasn’t one of them. 

It came at 2:14 when he was half-passed out on the couch. It was the only version of sleep he seemed to get these days – the kind where he could never actually remember if he was sleeping or awake, his thoughts swirling and never far from the surface. It wasn’t restful in the slightest, but it was better than having nightmares.

The TV was playing some late night re-run of a talk show and he had a pillow stuffed over his head, feet hanging over the edge in grey wool socks when the phone started ringing. Jason was warm and comfortable; if the noise wasn’t so shrill and insistent, he would have happily ignored the phone altogether.

But he groaned and swore, getting to his feet to pad over to the table and search for his cell – his real one, not one of the seven burners he had at any one time. Only a few people had this number. Jason had installed the purposefully annoying ringtone for precisely that reason, knowing it would take that much to get him moving some nights, when his back ached from all the tiny scars littering it and he was so damn tired he would gladly let the world go to hell. 

He answered the phone with similar sentiments, his tone gruff.

“Whoever this is, it’s 2 in the god damn morning. Unless you’re dying or about to be that way, get bent until then.”

“Jay,” a voice at the other end said. It sounded quietly and vaguely slurred, ends of the words faltering. “Jay I – I think . . .”

“Dick?” he asked, brow creasing in confusion. What the hell was Goldie calling _him_ for? Sure, they had worked out a truce about six months ago now, peace in exchange for staying out of his territory, but they were hardly friends. There was no reason for Dick to be calling him this late. “What the hell do you want?”

“I think I need help.”

In the background of the call, Jason could make out shouting and the sound of feet, which added to the laboured breathing in between words, told him Dick was moving fast. 

Detective work. Suck on that, Batman.

“So? Call one of the others – I’m sure Replacement would be oh-so-fucking-happy to get the praise for hauling your ass outta trouble.”

“I can’t. I need you.”

“Why the hell would you need me? In case you’ve forgotten, I tried to _kill_ you less than a year ago!”

“ _Please_ ,” Dick pleaded, and Jason’s gut twisted in guilt.

He hated this. He hated that he and Dick should be brothers but instead they couldn’t hold a conversation without throwing a punch, he hated that he was always the last resort, and God, he hated the Joker so much for taking that away from him.

That brought a new wave of memories. Dick had let Bruce replace him, had been close with his Replacement when it should have been him in that place, had stood by Batman after he had let him die. 

No, screw him. He was as bad as the rest.

“Go to Hell, Goldie. Call your precious Batman.”

“Jason.” The slurring was clear now, Dick’s voice heavy and forced. The next words were the cincher, hitting Jason so hard he was breathless for a few seconds: “ _Little Wing_ , I need your help.”

It took the few seconds for worry to set in, quick and icy, settling unpleasantly in his gut. Dick wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important. 

He knew he shouldn’t go. It would end in a fight, or words that kept him up for weeks feeling like the bad guy yet again - but god damn it, you only slurred like that from serious blood loss. 

“Fuck,” Jason said. It had taken only a few seconds for his internal argument to play out. Grabbing his jacket and hood, he was dressed for the streets and heading for the roof in under a minute. “ _Fuck_. Dick, where are you?”

“The Narrows,” Dick replied. Jason could almost hear the smile in his voice now. He added, trying to help. “Uh, there’s an alley.”

“Real helpful, Dickie Boy. It’s the Narrows, _everywhere’s _an alley.”__

__“S’not my fault,” Dick slurred, “It’s dark. There’s . . . a billboard on top of a building. Lex is on it, s’smiling, the prick.”_ _

__If he wasn’t so worried, Jason would have laughed at that. As it was, it told him exactly where he needed to go. Although he lived uptown now, he had picked this safehouse because it was easy to reach midtown from there, so he was about half an hour away from the Narrows when he left._ _

__“Good. Stay there.”_ _

__Dick answered quietly, “Okay.”_ _

__Swinging and jumping carelessly across the rooftops, Jason stumbled a few times and swore loudly down the phone as he made painstakingly slow progress across his part of the city, each time answered by a snort of laughter from Dick. It was reassuring as it was annoying – Jason was going to swear if he wanted to, damn it, but at least sound meant the idiot was alive._ _

__Panting slightly, Jason landed on the top of an office building in The Narrows, its windows boarded up and long abandoned. Lex Luthor smiled next to him, even the glossy twenty-foot photograph managing to capture the arrogance of the man. He resisted the urge to punch it. Barely._ _

__The bald headed asshole leered over the district, visible from almost anywhere in the Narrows, but Jason had a feeling Dick wouldn’t have said it unless he was really close to the billboard. The streets here were like a labyrinth of alleys and crooked lanes, each clashing into the other with no explanation or direction, a huddle of crummy apartments and take-out places, occasionally with a backroom casino in the mix. It wasn’t pretty, but it was what it was._ _

__Unlike Bruce’s Gotham, the shining lights and skyscrapers of the business district, the Narrows had an honesty about it Jason had always admired. It knew it wasn’t great, but people tried anyway – he saw support groups in abandoned buildings and children playing on broken swings, and he knew he was protecting the right place; the right people._ _

__A Bowery boy himself, Jason understood this side of Gotham better than any of them – better than Bruce or Dick or even the Replacement, not to mention Bruce’s latest brat. They all came from the other world. They tried to fight crime the same way here as they did across the bridge, but it didn’t work. It wasn’t the same, something none of them seemed to get._ _

__But he did._ _

__“I’m here.”_ _

__He dropped down into the dimly lit alley below, looking for a commotion. There was nothing: a wet floor, a few dumpsters, old boxes collapsing from the damp and backdoors to whatever the buildings around him were – but no fight. No Dick._ _

__“Where are you?” he demanded down the phone, only now noticing the silence down the line. Quickly, Jason turned in a circle looking for any sign of his brother, one hand slowly going to the clip at his waist and pulling out a gun. Holding it aloft before him, Jason started to move slowly down the alley. He whispered as he furiously took slow, purposeful steps. “Dick, answer me! I’m on the scene, so where the hell are you? C’mon Goldie . . .”_ _

__As his eyes glanced at the floor, Jason noticed a splatter of blood a foot away from him. Veins turning to ice, he knelt beside it and pulled off his hood, exposing his face for a better view. The blood was fresh, angled to show the movement of the person; they had obviously been coming down the alley at a fast pace, probably running. It was small, but as Jason glanced up he saw a bloody handprint on the wall to his left._ _

__Closing his eyes for a second, Jason tried to breathe. A crowbar flashed against his eyelids and he jerked away involuntarily, breathing hard._ _

__When he got to his feet, he left his hood on the floor of the alley, stalking forward with his face exposed and none of the caution he had shown before. Now, he was angry. Someone had hurt his brother, and after he was sure Dick was safe, Jason was going to hurt _them_._ _

__“You better not be dead,” he said, only half paying attention to the phone still in his hand. Mostly he just needed to talk. “You better not be fucking _dead_ , Dick, I swear . . .”_ _

__Ahead of him, there was a loud groan from behind a dumpster. A foot appeared from behind it, accompanied by further grunts of pain, before a familiar voice answered, “So I’m dead and you’re still threatening me?”_ _

__Jason was too relieved to even take the rise, running the rest of the way before the older man came into view. Dick was slumped against the dumpster, his lips curving into a pretty pathetic smile as Jason came into view, lifting a hand in a wave. He was surprisingly not in costume, but civilian clothing: jeans and a white t shirt – now stained with blood._ _

__The Hoodless Red Hood crouched beside him, “What happened?”_ _

__“I got into a fight.”_ _

__“Yeah, I can see that,” Jason deadpanned. As he knelt, he checked for the cause of bleeding, expecting a stab or bullet wound. To his surprise, there was nothing but a collection of red marks on Dick’s torso which he expected would turn into spectacular bruises over the next few days and a collection of deep scratches, the largest of which was over Dick’s eye, causing blood to drip down his face. It didn’t make any sense. “You’re not that bad -”_ _

__“S’not my blood,” Dick slurred back. He wasn’t making eye contact now, gaze in the gutter. “I said I was in a fight, I didn’t say who won.”_ _

__“You beat some random smuck up?” the younger man laughed, rocking back on his heels. “Oh how the mighty have fallen! Bruce would be so disappointed.”_ _

__“Please don’t.”_ _

__Jason couldn’t understand why Dick looked so awful – it wasn’t his first fight, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be his last. They dressed up and beat people up nightly, for Christ’s sake! It didn’t make sense for Dick to be acting like a kicked puppy. Frowning, Jason leaned towards his brother again, catching a strong scent of whiskey from the other man; it all clicked suddenly._ _

__“Are you _drunk_?”_ _

__Dick had the good graces to at least look guilty, “Sorry, Jay.”_ _

__“You fucker,” Jason stood furiously. Backing away a few steps to keep himself from socking Dick in the jaw then and there, he felt his body go ridged, a ringing in his ears sounding. “That’s why you called me? Because you didn’t want Bruce or any of the others to see you?”_ _

__“It’s not like that-”_ _

__“Really? Because it looks to me like you didn’t want anyone you actually liked to see you like this, so you called me. You’re a fucking _state_ , Goldie.” _ _

__“Jay,” Dick begged. He could see how irate his brother was getting, and it wasn’t helping the pounding of his head or the broken rib he expected he had. “I called you ‘cause I thought you’d understand . . . not anything else. I jus’ wanted someone to understand.”_ _

__When Dick put his head in his hands, slumping again, but in sadness this time that seemed to weigh him down suddenly, Jason froze. This wasn’t like Dick at all: he couldn’t remember a time he’d seen his brother this uninhibited, let alone beat up in an alley. Something was really, really wrong with this picture._ _

__Feeling his anger subside, Jason frowned, crossing his arms. “Understand what?”_ _

__“What it feels like.”_ _

__Jason blinked, looking down on the other man without revealing what he was thinking. Dick wasn’t so artful; in the hazy streetlight he looked defeated, his words spoken in a tone which confirmed this. Putting a hand on his hairline, he raked his fingers through his dark hair before resting it back against the dirty brick wall behind him._ _

__Here, Dick Grayson wasn’t a hero, or the favoured son, or the saviour of Blüdhaven . He was young and too tired._ _

__“We need to get you out of here,” Jason ordered, making a snap decision. “Whoever messed up your face might come for some payback. C’mon.”_ _

__When he held out a hand, Dick just looked at it for a minute. Then, he took it and Jason pulled him to his feet, taking most of his brother’s weight, slinging one arm around his shoulder as he started to drunk walk Dick down the alley. Although they veered across the way, stumbling a few times, Jason saved them too much disaster as they walked through the darkened – and thankfully empty – streets, stopping only to pick up his helmet as he passed._ _

__Careful not to be seen so Dick wouldn’t have to explain to the press why he was caught being walked home by the Red Hood in the middle of the night, the two managed to walk back to Jason’s safe house without incident, keeping to the shadows._ _

__

__**********_ _

__

__It took over an hour, but Jason dumped Dick on his couch at just gone 4am._ _

__“Ow,” Dick groaned as he fell ungracefully onto the cushions, landing in an awkward position halfway on the couch. He clutched his head and lay still as Jason bit back a snicker, walking into his tiny kitchen and coming back with a glass of water._ _

__“Here, ya big baby.”_ _

__Dick took the offered glass. To his credit, he sat quietly and sipped his drink, trying to be as small as possible. Glancing at him in the reflection of a mirror hanging on the wall, Jason noticed this, features twitching in worry for half a second. Dick pulled his knees up to his chest, head ducked with his hair half crusted to his face with blood; it didn’t suit him at all. Dick was made for centre ring – he shouldn’t be trying to hide._ _

__Jason threw a damp cloth at his head. “Clean yourself up. I’ll go see if I’ve got any clothes that’ll fit you.”_ _

__While he was gone, Dick obeyed the command clumsily, fumbling on the cloth and dropping it a few times in his drunken attempts to wash his face. In the end, he put up with the pain and scrubbed it blindly until it felt clean, ignoring the stinging of the cuts at the action. Shaking his head as if to clear it, he had just stood up to look for a med kit when a pair of hands pushed him back down to the couch._ _

__“Sit down,” Jason said, dropping an old shirt and joggers next to him. He went into the kitchen and returned with a med kit and bottle of beer, handing one to Dick while opening the other for himself. “You’ll only get hurt if you fall.”_ _

__When the older man looked accusingly at the beer Jason was swigging from, he shrugged, “What? I’m not doing this sober if you’re not. Get changed.”_ _

__After speaking, he turned his back, creasing up in laughter at the loud bumps and cursing behind him as Dick changed into the pyjamas. When he turned back, the older man stood in an old t-shirt advertising peanut butter cups and blue joggers too long for his legs, hanging over his feet like a child in their parent’s clothing._ _

__Jason sniggered, “You’ve never looked better.”_ _

__“Shit,” Dick groaned, collapsing back and covering his eyes with an arm. His head was spinning and the floor wouldn’t stay still, the urge to throw up rising every time he stood. “I didn’t mean to get like this, I really didn’t . . . I didn’t mean to-”_ _

__“Don’t get all sappy-drunk on me.” Jason cut him off sharply, but when Dick’s face fell as he sat straight again, the Hood forced a smile, sitting down on the couch next to his brother. “This might be my only chance to see you honestly smashed - don’t waste it on sad times.”_ _

__Dick smiled weakly back, “You already missed the dancing on tables.”_ _

__“Like a stripper?”_ _

__“ _Better_ than a stripper,” Dick grinned proudly, “I have skills, you know.”_ _

__At that, Jason genuinely cracked up, leaning back before sipping his own beer again. He didn’t really need it, but the warmth in his belly grew and made this all a little less awkward. For a second, he grew serious._ _

__“You didn’t compromise your identity?”_ _

__“Only as Dick Grayson. I have a feeling the papers will be full of pictures of me accidentally starting a bar fight tomorrow.”_ _

__“That is _brilliant_ ,” the younger man laughed. “I wish I could see Bruce’s face when he finds out. Or worse, _Alfred’s_ -”_ _

__“Jay!” Dick moaned, putting his head into his hands, although bubbles of laughter broke up his apparent agony. “Don’t remind me. Alf’s gonna read me the riot act! Oh, man.”_ _

__“It’s your own fault.”_ _

__“I know, I know,” he said. “I just . . . I jus’ needed to forget for a little while, you know? You know, Jay. You get it.”_ _

__“What?”_ _

__“The Shadow,” Dick shrugged drunkenly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. As he slowly spoke, he held a hand in front of him and gestured weakly as if to illustrate his point, eyes unfocused on some point in the mid-distance. “Bruce’s shadow. He was dead and I thought – I don’t know what I thought, but I didn’t want to be Batman, Jay. I _didn’t_.”_ _

__Jason’s face froze. He remembered that time just after Bruce had died all too well – he was just out of Arkham, and it was always worse there. He could hear the Joker laughing down the hall sometimes. It fucking killed him. It let the voices back in and he lost control._ _

__“I nearly killed Tim and Damian,” he said quietly, glaring down into his bottle. Almost as distracted as his brother was, he picked at the label until it had peeled off, hating himself. “It was a bad time, I never told you that. I needed to be out of Arkham – hell, out of _Gotham_ , and then Bruce was dead and I couldn’t think. I don’t remember half of what I did.”_ _

__Beside him, Dick looked up. “I don’t forgive you for what you did.”_ _

__“You shouldn’t.”_ _

__“I want you to remember it, so you don’t do it again,” he said, looking Jason square in the eyes. “You were right, earlier. I called you because I needed to be around somebody I don’t like right now – but I still _want_ to trust you, Jay. I wish it could change. I can forgive you if that’s what you want, but I don’t think it’s what you need . . . I think you need a reason.”_ _

__Jason nodded numbly. Getting up, he threw his empty bottle in the sink and this time returned with a bottle of Jack, swigging straight from it despite the tumbler already on the table. If they were going to do this, he needed a strong drink._ _

__“So the shadow, right,” Dick went on, giving him a reprieve. “I knew it was always there, but when I was Nightwing, it couldn’t – it couldn’t touch me. I thought I’d got away.”_ _

__“You only get away when you’re dead.”_ _

__“Don’t talk like that, Little Wing.” The older man looked so hurt that Jason held up his hands in defeat and mimed zipping his mouth shut. The last thing he wanted was a crying Nightwing on his couch. “. . . Then I was Batman and I didn’t know what to do with Damian – the kid was a mess. He was so angry. But he wanted to do better; I could see that, even if no one else believed me. But what was I supposed to do? I’m not a dad.”_ _

__“You’re kind of a dad.”_ _

__Dick shook his head. “Not in the way he needed me to be.” Water empty, he put it on the table. It wasn’t spinning anymore, “He needed a real dad, one who knew how to do all that stuff. I didn’t have a clue. But we worked it out, me and Dami, in the end. It was good, for a little bit . . . but then Bruce, he was back. And I didn’t even have a chance to really think about it – because _holy shit_ he was _dead_! But not dead . . . in time – or at least that’s what Timmy says.”_ _

__“Lucky for him,” Jason muttered dryly. Watching with a thoughtful expression on his face, he didn’t even notice a quarter of the bottle had disappeared. “So what? You’re pissed that he’s back?”_ _

__“No! . . . I don’t know.”_ _

__“Don’t feel guilty about it; I’m pissed at him too. He fuckin’ did it again.”_ _

__Dick blinked in confusion, “What do you mean?”_ _

__“Bruce, he fucks with people’s lives without even thinking about it. Like, he comes back and expects things to be the way they were before. But they’re not.” Jason paused, annoyed with himself. He realized he wasn’t really talking about Bruce anymore, feeling a familiar anger roar in his chest, so changed tack quickly. “He came back and expected everyone to follow him blindly again. Bruce might play the hero, but he’s just . . . I don’t know. He ain’t a leader, that’s for sure.”_ _

__Dick shook his head, “He tries his best.”_ _

__“But he shouldn’t rule absolutely,” Jason argued. “He came back and demanded it to be his way again, but it’s not fuckin’ fair when he does that. Not after you’ve found your feet.”_ _

__“Jay-”_ _

__“I wanted him to be dead, you know,” he said loudly, knocking back a good proportion of the bottle for good measure. “I just thought it would be over that way, all of this. But you know what the worst thing is? When I heard he was back, I thought he’d been really dead too, and that if he came back the way I did, he might _understand_. I thought things might actually change.”_ _

__For a little while, the Red Hood melted away, and Dick saw his little brother Jay sitting next to him. He had wanted it for so long. It hurt at the same time, like the feeling you get in your chest when you can’t breathe, the same desperate sort of burning. He felt that way around Jason all the time. The other man was still his brother, after all; Dick was faced with the memory of failing him each time they met._ _

__It broke Dick’s heart a little bit right then._ _

__“Things can change whenever you want them to, Little Wing,” he said softly, “All you ever had to do was say so. Me, Bruce – we never stopped hoping that one day you- you’d forgive us for letting you down the way we did.”_ _

__Jason said nothing for a good while, just letting Dick sit in silence as he sat. He even put his drink down. Although his eyes had a far away mist of deep thought to them, he did not cry. It was numbness, more than anything; he was used to it._ _

__Finally, Jason spoke. “We fucked a lot of things up, didn’t we?”_ _

__“Yeah,” Dick nodded bitterly, “Yeah, we did.”_ _

__“Too much.”_ _

__“No. Never that.”_ _

__Jason looked unconvinced, slowly shredding the label he had pulled off his bottle in his hands. It was a kind of nervous tick, one that would never affect him in a fight but could only show through when he was at home – and usually alone. But Dick noticed anyway, eyes drawn to the movement._ _

__When he moved suddenly, Dick jumped until he realized Jason was walking into his bedroom to get something, returning with a blanket a few minutes later. He handed it to him without words and sat on the floor, leaning with his back against the couch by Dick’s feet._ _

__The older brother obediently lay down, wrapping the blanket over himself. “Thanks, Jay.”_ _

__“Yeah, Yeah. Don’t mention it - I have a reputation to keep.”_ _

__Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Dick snuggled back into the cushions. They moulded around him in a familiar way, telling him that Jason must sleep there most nights – he used to fall asleep in front of the TV a lot when he was a cop. He guessed Jason did the same thing: come home, eat, and collapse on the nearest vertical surface._ _

__“Wait,” he blinked sleepily, sitting up on one elbow. “You should go to bed, too. It’s cold.”_ _

__Jason didn’t even turn around, but waved a hand in Dick’s direction; when he spoke, his voice was forced in nonchalance, but there was hesitancy to it. “I’ll stay for a little while; make sure you don’t choke on your own puke. Now go the hell to sleep.”_ _

__With his brother sitting at his feet like a sentry, Dick smiled and closed his eyes, adding quietly, “Night, Little Wing.”_ _

__

__***********_ _

__

__The next morning, the light streaming in from a nearby window and hitting his face woke Dick up gently. Blinking a few times, his eyes adjusted to an unfamiliar room, and for a moment he couldn’t remember getting there, springing into a crouch on the couch before his head spiked with pain._ _

__Eyes closed and burning, Dick’s mind clicked. He was at Jason’s. The pain was just a hangover (maybe a concussion, he didn’t remember how bad the beating was). He had fallen asleep. He was safe._ _

__When he opened his eyes again, Dick’s lips twitched into a smile as he saw a packet of painkillers left for him on the table. The safe house was empty; Jason wasn’t there. But Dick hadn’t expected him to be._ _

__It was a start, and that was enough._ _

**Author's Note:**

> hello thank you for reading! I was thinking about making this a series of Jason sort-of making peace with the batfam, with a short meeting for each person? based on a jay playlist I totally do not have. would that be a thing people would read??


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